Mod versions here
Spoiler: Mission statement ramble
The aim of this rebalance is to remove any kind of discouragement of what Hugo Martin calls the Fun Zone. Seeing as it does its best to emulate Doom Eternal, I put more emphasis on this very concept in this altered mod. The Fun Zone is the balance between difficulty and skill, something that’s challenging you, but not too much. However, I do not think I have achieved that yet. However, a key component of this is that it needs to encourage the use of a variety of weapons instead of just using one. Weapon Switching to skip reloads is worthless if one only wants to switch between two high damage ones, and the alt fires need to be considerably good in order to actually be used at all. That's where this rebalance comes in; In its current state, the goal is to make every weapon not only just *feel* good to fire, but to also have a semi-niche purpose that allows each one to shine in different situations.
Games that feature shared ammo pools often make the same mistake of having one weapon deal more damage with the same number of bullets. Of course they can balance it out by weighing down that weapon with a lot of downsides such as overheating and a long period of cooldown that leaves you vulnerable because you can't switch to another weapon. However, I don't think this should be the case, as I've notice in my playthroughs of other games that it often gets me to blame the game more often than blaming myself for not keeping track of a function. This is what I aim to mitigate in this mod; the mistake of weapon redundancy.
In Brutal Doom, the minigun's individual bullets are each weaker than the assault rifle, while the machine gun's bullets are fired rapidly enough for me to not want to use the minigun when I have the machine gun at hand. The niche for the minigun is taken up by the machine gun, and with Slayer's Rampage, I want to mitigate some of those unnecessary downsides so it encourages more diverse play. This mod aims to alter the weapons so that they can fit into niches that the other weapons don't exactly fit into, with one gun being as equally rewarding as the other. Wiiiiiith the exception of the pistol of course.
An issue is that conservative players (me) will often just take the lazy route and measure a weapon by the damage-per-ammo used compared to other weapons. In a way, this is a lazy fallback plan that often allows a player to succeed without engaging in the fun zone. With a few notable exceptions, the damage here has been readjusted to distribute the same amount of damage per bullet through different types of damaging effects, which still allows for the same amount of total damage, but how it's used? That can definitely change the outcome of the game. Explosive projectiles that initially deal less damage to an individual than two primary fire bullets but spread the damage out in an AOE attack, for example.
Spoiler: CreditsChangelog
- Endie (Obviously for the base mod)
Ya can look at their own credits here.
- DoomKrakken for the BFG cell sprites
- pa1nki113r for the sprites and effects for the Unmayker projectiles from the BFG
Spoiler: Changes
Initial changes:
- Shotgun
- grenade now takes two shotgun shells instead of one rocket to encourage its use
- Spread radius of primary fire tightened, creating a niche for the shotgun best used for mid range combat. Grenades often fall too much to reach that range so there are more reasons to use this primary fire ot
- Micro missiles now each take two bullets and their damage is buffed, along with the explosion radius
- Rocket launcher seeker missiles are buffed to be almost as powerful as the primary rocket
- Super Shotgun reload gimmick is now removed to better flow with the combos
- Plasma rifle damage reduced, but the cooldown is reduced to nonexistence
- Revolver alt fire shoots the same explosive bullets as primary fire
- PCR damage increased
- Minigun bullet damage increased
- Health and armor system revamp
- All armor tanks 100% damage
- Health and Armor stack up to 300
- Any health and armor items will stack up to 300. Nothing like the green armor setting it to 100 and blue armor setting it to 200. They will add up.
- any health and armor items are not always picked up if you have maxed out on it
VERSION 2 CHANGES:
- Assault Shotgun can theoretically deal the same amount of damage as the Shotgun since it shoots out the same number of projectiles, but as before, it is still more spread out.
- Chainsaw now also drops minigun and magnum ammo. Never knew why they were omitted.
- minigun
- The wind up for the primary fire has been removed to more conveniently integrate it into weapon combos when needed or to pull out in panic situations, or just plain suppressing fire
- The wind up for the alt fire has been shortened though not entirely removed to make up for its damage output
- Primary fire spread has been made more accurate to balance out the lower rate of fire. The secondary fire's spread has remained wide and unchanged. It's akin to the mobile turrets of Doom Eternal, but seeing as we can't slow down the player when using it, the much wider bullet spread is a good compromise.
- The minigun's rate of fire is high enough that I didn't need to increase the damage of the bullets by much in order to grant it a niche that the Heavy Assault Rifle does not take up, and is worth the bullets
- Removed the shaking for the minigun's alt fire
- Shortened the wind down for the chaingun in both primary and alt fire that notably blocks the melee ability
- Grenade throw is much faster, skipping the animation of taking off the pin to throw it immediately
- A quick chainsaw slash is now added in the game! Just bind it in the menu.
VERSION 3 CHANGES {current version}
- The PCR alt fire has been replaced with a piercing sniper-like single bolt shot that deals far more damage at the cost of 6 bullets. It cannot be spammed, since it immediately zooms out the moment after it's fired. A 'recharge' timer has been set so that it cannot be spammed.
- HUD
- The chainsaw cooldown can be seen on the hud the same way the grenade cooldown functions
- Minimized the number of displays in the hud, showing only the primary ammo for each weapon since you will never use the any other ammo pool than that of the primary
- Plasma Rifle
- Alt fire now has a brief cooldown period before it can be fired again
- Faster fire rate
- pretty much all pinata pickups gained by killing enemies with melee and/or chainsaw will gravitate towards the player now. However, as this is a workin progress, there are clearly some kinks in the workings especially when it comes to standing still or moving backwards from the item
- Now cut down on the ammo capacity plus other changes. This is because of the now much more readily available ammo given by the chainsaw:
- Format: AmmoType (Initial capacity, backpack capacity)
- Shell (20, 40)
- "HeavyAmmo" Rocket (20, 40)
- Magnum Bullets (30, 60)
- "Clip" Rifle Ammo (150, 300)
- "Minigun Ammo" (100, 200)
- Cell (150, 300)
- New Ammo!
- Argent Cell [For BFG] (60, 90)
- Has a small chance to replace the vanilla Rocket Ammo, and each pickup is worth 30 Argent Cells each
- BFG
- The BFG projectile now rapidly drains nearby enemies of their health
- Now using Argent Cells, the BFG uses 30 of this ammo type each shot
- Has a secondary fire that takes up 1 cell, and shoots three weaker but still devastating projectiles at once in a spread fire, notably like the UnMaykr from Doom Eternal. Each projectile has the same damage as the Gauss Cannon.
- Gauss Cannon
- Each primary fire shot takes 15 cells
- Each secondary fire shot takes 30 cells
- Tweaked weapon spawns
VERSION 3.1 CHANGES
- Added a Flame Belch! works just like the chainsaw in deployment and cooldown
VERSION 4 CHANGES
- If you successfully land a SSG hookshot on a monster, you get armor
- Further rebalancing of ammo, allowing for all to be refilled to a semi-substantial amount after chainsawing
- Sped up fire rate of rocket launcher triple burst
- Centered the alt fire for the rocket launcher
- The alt fire of the rocket launcher has a cooldown
- Changed back the animation of the super shotgun
- Kept the super shotgun weapon available even without the shells
- The player now starts off with a chainsaw to stay consistent with the new chainsaw attack
- The chainsaw is now replaced by the Magnum bullet using weapons
- Micromissiles of the HAR now subtly seek enemies
- The hook shot is now near instantaneous, immediately locking onto a hit area in the blink of an eye, and pulling you towards it in a more responsive manner
- flame belch flames will now seek out enemies to reduce frustration with using it frequently
- grenade now bounces higher and explodes a little faster. It also guarantees a second-long pain state for those caught in its radius
- Also has damage reduction for player to encourage combos
- The painchance of most enemies has now been reduced
- Autoshotgun has a MUCH faster primary fire, and a completely new hookshot (named reelshot for convenience) alt fire that reels enemies in. Killing any enemies with the autoshotgun will make them drop shells
- Buffed the Mancubus HP
- Lesser enemies will now explode and deal minor aoe damage when killed by the plasma rifle
- Rockets are slower, plus the fire rate of the rocket launcher is very decreased; this balances out the ab surd firepower each rocket has
- Radsuits now respawn
- Rage now has a much higher threshold, so use it sparingly!
- Pistol slightly changed in that you can hold the alt fire to keep firing the altfire
- You can now stockpile two blood punches.
- Health pickups are now 2 points instead of 1, and armor is 3
- Allowed for the secondary fire of the shotgun to be refired by holding down the button; also increased the speed of the shotgun pump animation. The grenade projectile is also faster too. Not only that, but the alt fire has been sped up as well. However, you can only shoot five grenades at a time before it needs to recharge
- buffed the cacodemon but made it so that they are particularly vulnerable to the shotgun grenade. They now fire 3-round bursts of cacodemon balls, so they take higher priority than before
- Primary fire for PCR now has total accuracy because it won't feel like you're firing a peashooter
- Added a spread to the Flame belch projectiles so that it would hit the monsters more reliably; by that I mean it shoots more flames that actually spread out as well as shoot in that general direction
- slowed down fire rate of the Thunderbird drastically
- Moved the BFG to the 8th slot, so the Gauss cannon can be switched to on the fly.
- The BFG Unmaykr altfire now alternates its spread just like the Unmaykr in Doom Eternal
- Increased some enemy aggression. The shotgun sergeant now explodes with AOE damage when killed by the plasma rifle
- Additional rage points, health and armor that goes over 300 will also build up the blood punch charges
- The WolfensteinSS has now been updated for compatibility with the mod, having similar behaviors and drops as the normal zombieman
- Added a meathook to the SSG and Assault shotgun sprites; it only appears when the hook cooldown is 0.
- The assault rifle comes first in the 4th weapon slot now for easier combos especially with the Precision Bolt
- The assault rifle's cooldown is set to 0 every time you switch out of it
- The assault rifle, and shotgun alt fires are now hold to ADS, just like in Doom Eternal. A function allows you to hold alt fire and fire at the same time while holding onto it and allows you to make deadly combos, with crisper and cleaner controls.
- Sniper is now moved to the same keybind as the gauss cannon
- The reel of the autoshotgun hook now gives an extra 5 shells when it successfully hits an enemy.
- The rocket launcher's alt fire can be followed up with another volley of rockets if you happen to hold the trigger after the first.
- Gauss Cannon's siege mode charge time now takes a much longer time; this is now synced up with the high pitched sound of it's fully charged state
- All the weapons (except the BFG of course) have had their weapon handling improved for more precise control and easier combos. This is to encourage diverse weapon swapping. This is primarily done by holding Altfire to prep the secondary functions. ()
- Minigun had an exploit where you can skip the windup animation with the primary fire to go into its faster spinning mode. This has been fixed
- Rocket Launcher now has a hold function that is required to fire the Seeker Burst
- Picking up a new weapon also causes a printout to display on the screen denoting its alternate functions. This does not go for the BFG yet, however.
- The arachnotron, mancubus, and revenant have buffed and more aggressive attacks. However, they can be crippled when using the Gauss Cannon, Precision Bolt, Sniper, or Sticky Bomb, indicated by a booping sound that is usually hard to miss.
- There is now a new alt fire for the sniper rifle using its ADS to use 5 magnum rounds to create something like an area of damage around the projectile's trajectory. This has surprisingly devastating results.
- The minigun can now stunlock the baron of hell and hell knight
- most enemies can now be stunned and executed with just a punch if you get their health low enough. However, some, like the archvile do not. This system is to allow enemies to lower the pressure on the player, but only if they earn it.
- The mancubus now has a melee attack where they jump and stomp, causing a shock wave that damages the player. Its body language will usually tell you if it's about to though
- massively increased the fire rate of the revolver's alt fire
- Added the Unwilling as a slow melee zombie enemy type that spawns commonly with pickups. This is to ensure that you practically haave ammo and health pinatas everywhere you go. So long as you don't stand still.
- When a monster is within punching range and the field of view, THEN Blood Punch can be triggered. This helps prevent the player from losing bloodpunch by accidental punching or punching to trigger secrets
- The Seeker burst module now will not be readied by the alt fire until the crosshair is over the monster. The same thing goes for the riot autoshotgun; it will not fire the hook until you have the monster in your crosshairs
- Another Mancubus attack is the flamethrowers if you're close but not quite in stomping range. You can disable this attack too.
- The plasma rifle mod is now replaced with the Microwave beam diffusor. The mechanics of this are that you can only trigger it when your crosshair is right on a monster. This allows it to charge up and enter a charged state, where the rifle is visibly shaking and glowing red. When your crosshair is over a monster, it will automatically fire a stream of homing plasma tracers in that general direction. When a monster is killed by this, they will definitely explode, and this can cause a chain reaction because it can trigger these explosions in other enemies, and grants you bonus armor and health.
- Added a secondary attack for the arachnotrons; if you get within a certain range, they will lob bouncing grenades in six directions. However, their devastating plasma attacks can now be completely disabled to balance out this new function.
- Now the rocket launcher and plasma rifle have two weapon mods. most of the other weapons do not have one because there is already a weapon that takes up a function it would normally have or because it would not exactly be useful.
- Remote detonation added for Rocket launcher. This deals more damage and almost always guarantees stuns....almost
- The Plasma Rifle mod added is the heat blast. With three levels of heat blast dealing increasing amounts of damage. they also guarantee stuns and wound enemies and disabling attacks.
- Minigun and its alt fire now have an incredibly boosted fire rate so they are far more reliable
WORK IN PROGRESS: VERSION 5 CHANGES SO FAR
Plasma Rifle Heat Blast mod when fired at full capacity now charges it up, making you fire superheated plasma balls that each deal four times as much damage.
When wounding an enemy, there is a clear extended deet sound that now plays when you hit them with a weapon that weakens them
Revolver primary fire rate is now increased
